The Métis Nation are descendants of marriages of Woodland Cree, Ojibway, Saulteaux,Mi'kmaq and Menominee Indians (Native Americans) with French Canadian and/or British/Celtic settlers. Their history starts in the mid-1700s in the west and starts in the early 1600s in the east. Historically, many western Métis spoke a mixed language called Michif. Michif is the Métis pronunciation of Métis. The Métis today mostly speak English, with French as a strong second language, as well as many native language. The use of Michif is growing again thanks to the work of the provincial Métis councils.

The word Métis is French, and related to the Spanish word mestizo. It means the same thing: "mixed blood"; both names come from the Latin word mixtus, "mixed".

It is hard to say how many Métis people in Canada and the United States have Métis ancestors, but it is more than can be known.

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Métis culture is an mixture of cultures of the First Nations, French Canadian, English, and Orkney/Scottish. The Métis are known for their love of fiddle playing, but traditional instruments also included the concertina, the harmonica, and the hand drum. This love for the fiddle has gone together with a kind of dancing called jigging. Traditionally, dancing included such moves as the Waltz Quadrille, the Square dance, Drops of Brandy, the Duck, La Double Gigue and the Red River Jig.

Metis people were famous for their horsemanship and breeding of horses[source?]. The RCMP Musical Ride horses dance the Quadrille as begun by the Metis and their horses.

As the Métis culture grew, a new language called Michif was spoken. This language was a result of the combining of French nouns and Cree verbs. Though a distinct language, it is spoken by few people. Some guess that the number of Michif speakers is about 1,000.

The sash, recognized as the symbol of the Métis nation in Western Canada has long been a part of Métis culture in the Maritimes. Originally made of vegetable fibres, Mi'kmaq women created colourful sashes using a finger-weaving technique. Later, the Assomption-style sashes were brought from Quebec and adopted by both Métis and Mi'kmaq alike.

The clothing worn by Métis in the 19th century included the sash or ceinture flechée. It is traditionally about three metres in length and is made by weaving yarn together with one's fingers. The sash is worn around the waist, tied in the middle, with the fringed ends hanging. Vests with Métis beadwork are also popular. The Red River Coat came from the Metis culture.

The Métis were important in Canada's past, as fur traders who came from the east coast, voyageurs (coureur de bois), frontiersmen, pioneers, and middlemen who communicated between the First Nations peoples and cultures, and the European settlers and colonists.

The most famous Métis was Louis Riel, who led two rebellions which John A Mcdonald hated, the Red River Rebellion in 1869 in the area now known as Manitoba, and the North-West Rebellion in 1885 in the area now known as Saskatchewan. Some say these were not really rebellions. For example, in 1869 Riel was the leader of a government recognized by Canada as controlling territory that did not belong to Canada; Canada worked on the Manitoba Act with this government. After these "rebellions", land claimers and other non-Métis took away the Métis' land by taking advantage of a government program for buying it, with the government letting this happen. The province of Alberta gave some land to Métis in 1938 to fix what it thought was not fair, but Saskatchewan and Manitoba have not done the same.

Born in 1940, in northern Saskatchewan, Metis writer and filmmaker Maria Campbell brought attention to the struggles of modern-day Metis and Aboriginal people with her book, Halfbreed (1973), and the play, Jessica (1982). She has shown the sound and song of traditional stories through her work in dialect, Stories of the Road Allowance People (1996).

Novelist Sandra Birdsell is the daughter of a Métis man and a Russian Mennonite woman and wrote her award-winning novel Children of the Day partly on her parents' experience in Manitoba in the 1920s-50s.

Canadian Professional Wrestler Ben Saulnier, better known for his ring name Jake Benson, is a Métis from Penetanguishene, Ontario, Canada.